**New for Spring 2025: A full list of undergraduate Spring 2025 courses that meet the Government elective requirement for concentrators (and potentially other requirements) is available as both a sortable spreadsheet (Excel) and a printable chart (pdf).
A complete list of courses in the Government Department is available on my.harvard.
For lists of courses that meet various concentration requirements, see the following:
- Courses that meet the subfield requirements
- Courses that meet the elective requirements (including options at the Harvard Kennedy School)
- Gov 94 seminar offerings
Note that the secondary field in Government has different requirements.
General Education Courses for Government Credit
The following courses in Harvard’s General Education Program count for credit in Government, as noted below:
SPRING 2025
| Course | Faculty | Gen Ed category* | Counts for Gov concentration elective credit? | Counts for Gov concentration subfield credit? | Counts for the secondary field in Government? |
| Gen Ed 1032: What is a Republic? | Daniel Carpenter | EC, HSI | Yes | Yes (American Politics subfield) | Yes |
FALL 2024
| Course | Faculty | Gen Ed category* | Counts for Gov concentration elective credit? | Counts for Gov concentration subfield credit? | Counts for the secondary field in Government? |
| Gen Ed 1092: American Society & Public Policy | Theda Skocpol & Mary Waters | HSI | Yes | Yes (American Politics subfield) | Yes |
| Gen Ed 1123: Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East | Malika Zeghal | HSI | Yes | No | No |
| Gen Ed 1200: Justice: Ethical Reasoning in Polarized Times | Michael Sandel | EC | Yes | Yes (Political Theory subfield) | Yes |
*Gen Ed categories: EC = Ethics & Civics; HSI = History, Societies, Individuals
Harvard College’s Distribution and QRD Requirements
Since Fall 2019, students have had to meet two College-wide requirements before graduation:
- A distribution requirement: One departmental course in each of the three divisions at FAS: (1) arts and humanities, (2) social sciences, and (3) science and engineering and applied science.
- Quantitative reasoning with data (QRD) requirement: One course that familiarizes students with the basic tools of data analysis.
The vast majority of Government Department courses meet the divisional distribution requirement in the social sciences. To confirm that a particular class will count for that requirement, look at the “divisional tag” under the course description in my.harvard.edu.
The following courses currently offered by the Government Department meet the QRD requirement:
- Gov 50: Data Science for the Social Sciences
- Gov 51: Data Analysis and Politics
- Gov 1010: Survey Research Methods